Washington \u2014 The two-week-old federal government shutdown is costing the U.S. economy about US$15 billion a day in lost output, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Wednesday, putting an estimate on its economic toll and urging Democrats to \u201cbe heroes\u201d and side with Republicans to end it.<\/p>\n
Bessent told a news conference that the shutdown was starting to \u201ccut into muscle\u201d of the U.S. economy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe that the shutdown may start costing the U.S. economy up to $15 billion a day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The wave of investment into the U.S. economy, including into artificial intelligence, is sustainable and is only getting started, but the federal government shutdown is increasingly an impediment, Bessent said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is pent-up demand, but then (U.S.) President (Donald) Trump has unleashed this boom with his policies,\u201d Bessent said at a CNBC event held on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings in Washington.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only thing slowing us down here is this government shutdown,\u201d Bessent said.<\/p>\n
He said that incentives in the Republican tax law and Trump\u2019s tariffs would keep the investment boom going and fuel continued growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we can be in a period like the late 1800s when railroads came in, like the 1990s when we got the internet and office tech boom,\u201d Bessent said.<\/p>\n
U.S. deficit has shrunk, Bessent says<\/p>\n
Bessent also said that the U.S. deficit for the 2025 fiscal year ended Sept. 30 was smaller than the $1.833 trillion deficit posted in the prior fiscal year. He did not provide a figure, but said that the deficit-to-GDP ratio could come down to the three per cent range in coming years.<\/p>\n
The Treasury Department has not yet reported the annual deficit figure.<\/p>\n
The Congressional Budget Office estimated last week that the U.S. fiscal 2025 deficit fell only slightly to $1.817 trillion despite a $118 billion jump in customs revenue from Trump\u2019s tariffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe deficit-to-GDP, which is the important number, now has a five in front of it,\u201d Bessent said at the CNBC event.<\/p>\n
Asked if he wanted to see a three at the start of the deficit-to-GDP ratio, Bessent said, \u201cYes, it\u2019s still possible.\u201d He added that the ratio would come down if the U.S. could \u201cgrow more, spend less, and constrain spending.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Reporting by David Lawder and Andrea Shalal; Writing by Dan Burns and David Lawder; Editing by Paul Simao and Andrea Ricci)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Washington \u2014 The two-week-old federal government shutdown is costing the U.S. economy about US$15 billion a day in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[712,45,49,48,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-216491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}